Without application of strength one cannot make a step; the application of strength requires effort, and effort requires patience. Be patient in the sure hope that your labors will be rewarded in the end. Patience crowns everything and gives to everything support and strength.--Saint Theophan the Recluse

Saint Theophan often used folk expressions in order to make mystical realities understood by all Christians of his time. He felt a dire need to raise Christians to a higher spiritual level in a society which was rapidly changing. Convince your mind and heart that you have already died to everything in this world. Translate your mind and feelings into the other world and abide there, showing yourselves to be strangers to everything around, all things created and earthly. Arrange your inner world as if no one and nothing existed except the One God worshipped in Trinity. Let this thought just touch your heart and you will see for yourself how it is going to transform everything in your inner and outward life!

Saint Theophan the Recluse KINDLING THE DIVINE SPARK offers Saint Theophan's instructions to women, examining many essentials of the spiritual life, including: how the heart is purified, inner suffering, spiritual zeal, how to train oneself to pray, and mystical union with the Lord. It contains twenty sermons to nuns and a brief Life of Saint Theophan translated by Fr. Seraphim Rose, accompanied by rare photographs. Though originally offered as a volume of sermons given in women's monasteries, it comprises a conscious teaching of spirituality suited to the needs of both men and women, whether lay or monastic.

(paperback; 160pp; 8.25 x 5.25 x 0.2)

ISBN: 0938635441